Chapter 8

So I have been reading The Shack by WM Paul Young. You know what?! I haven’t cried so many tears of joy at one time in almost nine months. This read brings me in a place that is treasured and cherished to me. I want to share part of it with you.

I had mentioned in my last post about the questions of why God allows things to happen. I want to touch on that a little more. Here’s the reason why. Clarification.

So many of us blame God first. Guilty! I know I have. I can’t speak for everyone in this world but I can speak for me. I mostly had this phase in my teen years. I really thought that he was to blame. God equals good in my eyes so why does the bad happen?

Well, to those of you who don’t know there is evil in this world. It’s all over the place. And sometimes it resides in us. I know it resided in me and in all my hurts. And the lies that I believed are what made The Wall in my life. Every red brick was a lie that I believed from evil.

I am going to be blunt because I don’t know any other way to say these next few things. ( that’s a lie because it’s not a few things. Haha) but it comes from a place of love in my heart. I have been dancing around this subject for a few posts now but now is the time.

My Father doesn’t create the tragic things that happen in life. He does use it as way to give it purpose of Love. In one way or another Love comes out of it. Let that sink in for a second.

This was a hard thing for me to swallow when I first heard this. I even gave the look of ” This person is cray cray boo boo.” And even looking around to see if anyone else agrees. It didn’t come. If they did agree they weren’t going to tell me.

When I was first introduced to Jesus,heaven and hell I was a young child. I remember asking my Grandpa O what would happen if I did anything wrong. Mind you, when I asked this I was holding a old King James Verison of the good book. It had pictures in the book of Revelations. It looked horrific that is why I asked. As we stood in the kitchen as he was gathering the garbage he told me that I would burn in hell for all eternity Two words…. life changing!! I didn’t want to burn in hell for all eternity!! I really wanted to learn everything in The Bible so that I wouldn’t ever go to that bad place.

Then there was my Granny and GrandDaddy their version was a lot less absolute. They spoke of Jesus as Love. I didn’t understand that either. I was confused.

About this time in my life I started to experience things I really didn’t understand. The supernatural. Far fetched?! No not really. I had my first premonition through a dream as child. It involved my mom and her friend going out to a bar and her friends boyfriend trying to kill them. I told my mom about my dream. I was very specific on the details and like so many other moms she told me kindly that it was a dream. She added that I had nothing to worry about. I trusted her words and thought nothing of it. That was until she woke me up in the middle of the night asking me how did I know. She made me tell her friend the next morning. My mom told me that I was crazy. Haha, I am sure she meant that as a term of endearment. Or shock. I don’t know. Maybe it scared her.

So I continue to talk about this I will use terms that I have used to describe what I saw or experienced. The dark is what I would describe things. I found it odd that as I grew older these feelings, sightings or seeing people’s thoughts were strong. I always felt in my heart they were curses. Not gifts as so many others called them. They weren’t gifts. They were exhausting and tolling on me. People asking me to talk to the dead like it was nothing was very taxing. I hated that I could see what was in people’s minds and they didn’t appreciate it either. Getting dates wasn’t easy back then.

In my twenties I tried so hard to turn them off. All of it. And it ate at me. It was hurting me. Nightmares, the awful things people say and do to others, or being taken advantage of by the dead. So weird right. I often told myself that if I used it for good then I can do good. Not without some sort of consequence of course. I started to discover that a lot of people in my family have these things in one form or another. That includes my mom. Her stories are things out of scary movies. Not like mine are any better but it seems so normal for us.

My Father was never far behind in these quests. Y’all have to understand I didn’t have friends growing up in my super young years. I had my Father and Jesus. I talked to them like I would any other person in my life. I hungered to know them but I knew I was never alone. I hated when the darkness came. When they were around I knew I was safe. As a child, I didn’t know it was them but here is how I knew them.

I was guided on what to say when a man was trying to kidnap me one morning to school. I was directed to go to a neighbors house in hopes that someone would open the door. They were there throughout everything in my life. I just didn’t KNOW them the way I know them now. I just knew to trust that voice and not the other voice from the darkness.

The dark voice was not ever up to any good. It would disguise itself to be good but wasn’t. But the darkness I knew well. But the light was never far behind. I sought out the light. I needed it.

The darkness came into life before I was even born. The darkness is what I knew first before my Father. The darkness has been using people’s hurts to take up residency in their lives. They tell you lies and we’re humans; It’s so easy for us to believe the bad than the good.

The more hurt we are the more we believe the lies. Generally speaking that is. We are all different. I have believed all those lies and at some point even embraced them. Hence my huge brick wall.

There was a turning point for me in my relationship with my Father. I started asking the hard questions. Why did God make his only son die for us? Why am I raised catholic? Do these prayers and holy water really hold any real power? Is kneeling every five minutes in mass really impacting my life? Is it really showing my faithfulness to God? And why do I have to go through conformation to get married? And why do I have to marry a catholic man? Same went with my dad when we talked about church. He raised me a Baptist. Polar opposites in the way faith is practiced and equally exhausting. I remember telling both of them I wasn’t going to be a part of it. My mom didn’t like my choice and neither did my dad but they understood where I was coming from.

I didn’t feel that doing rituals or pretending was the way to God’s heart. That was my thinking at 15 and 16 years old. I mean, I had already seen the dark side of things all around me and in the news. I wanted to believe that there wasn’t a hell to go to but that I was living in hell on this planet and I had to find God in this world. Talk about confusion right?! I was totally confused. I’m sure reading this you’re confused haha.

So what did I do? Well, let me tell you. I hung on to what I knew in my heart of God and fought as much as I could against the darkness.

I had this helpless feeling that the darkness was stronger than me but I held on. My dad gave me all my bibles I have today. But he had given me a bible that was passed down to him from GrandDaddy. It was special to me. He gave it to me after I went to a church lock in and I was saved. I got so close to God in those moments. He was life. And I clung to him in a very codependent way. He was my air when the darkness wanted to suffocate me. And I think my dad knew that. I hungered for God. I hungered to feel loved and wanted. God did that for me. My Father still does.

I depended on Father for everything. I knew I was going to be okay one way or another. I hoped for more but didn’t know what that would look like. And I was still searching for love.

In all the hurts that I have ever encountered He was there but I didn’t know it like I do now.

For instance I didn’t understand why he wasn’t there when that man pulled my panties down to get his pleasure. That was a hurt that was deep. How could God allow someone to do that to a child? I got my answer. I was presented a vision.

I’m not sure if I do it justice by saying it was a vision, but, as if I were there all over again. I was that small child standing toward the wall reading that book and Jesus was there. He asked me to turn around and to look at that man. To see that he was sick and it was beyond my understanding how sick he was. That there was nothing I could have done to change him. I forgave that man for doing what he did to me and grateful he didn’t do more to hurt me. And just like that Jesus picked him up and asked me to leave the room. I choose to forgive and give Jesus that hurt.

The very first time I saw Jesus’ face he was behind my mom. She was choking me over the same stupid vent on the floor. I was reliving another hurt. As she’s choking me I don’t feel pain or fear like before. Jesus said ” Kristal look at your mom. She how sad she is. See how scared she is. This isn’t your mom right now. She is in pain. Forgive your mom. She’s going through things that you don’t understand.” I cried because He was right. I no longer saw rage or anger in my mom. I saw her hurts and her own pain. I saw how sad she was. I saw how the darkness was in her too and in those moments rage it really wasn’t my mom. Not in those eyes.

I am crying even writing this because He was so tender with my mom. He would pick her up at the very moment she would stop hurting me. And he would take her to her room. He was there the whole time y’all. I knew that for sure now because he was actually showing me. He was the one to be there to stop her. That is what I believe. Jesus helped me see. God knows how much I love my momma.

To get out of the darkness of my own fears and stress I had to see things with new eyes. He showed me that choosing to forgive the people that have caused me hurts made a huge difference in my own life and recovery.

I knew at that moment that Father was there the whole time and He wasn’t the one who caused these events in my life but that he was there to help me through it all. Telling me That my story matters. That these things in my life are going to help someone else at his perfect timing that only he knows. He can use the hurts and events for good. Glory be to Him.

He has shown me love in all these hurts I’ve have. He has shown me when I get out of his way things happen. He has shown me that the love I have for him I will stand alone because people have a hard understanding things they don’t know. I am humbled by the love he has for all of his children.

He has shown me who I am within him. He helped me save my little child self from a very dark place. He holds that young Kristal’s hand as she grows up to be a woman. She has a lot to learn about who she really is.

I talk to Father like I would my own parents, my friends or like my children. Without scolding though 😉. When I attempted suicide He was there too.

I have debated on when to dive into this topic. In fact I avoided it. I knew I wasn’t going to win that argument with Father because He knows what’s best. All my close friends know where I stand when it comes to God. In the most impossible situations I will turn to him first. I won’t rely on my own thoughts on most things. I talk to Father throughout my day. I have annoyed people with my talks of Jesus.

I know how fantastic this all sounds but it’s the truth. When I am sad I ask for Him to hold me and He does. When I am happy I know he is too. I have a duty to live this life to the fullest because Jesus died so that I could.

The love that washes over me is unfathomable. I don’t even know how to describe it. For the first time in my life I know Love. But that is for another day.